When’s the right time to transform your business?
You have a profitable business, leads are coming in regularly, sales are steady and everything is looking good. There’s just one issue: you want to get to the next level, but you’re faced with bottlenecks in operations, sales, marketing or other departments. Perhaps even company-wide. It’s frustrating as you know that with the right solution, you’ll gain the traction and momentum to move your business forward.
If you’d tackled those bottlenecks a year ago, or even a few months back, you’d already be reaping the rewards of improved efficiency and profitability, but I’m not here to tell you what you already know. So, if you haven’t started already, that must mean that the time to act is NOW, right? Actually, we’d argue that tomorrow might be better.
We’re not just being contrary; we have solid reasons for saying this. The core of the issue is that in most businesses the level of strategic change needed requires readiness, if it’s to have the desired effect. To be ready for change, you need three things: clarity of intention; stakeholder buy-in; and the right team.
Let’s take a closer look.
Clarity of intention
If you don’t know what you want to get out of something, you don’t know what you need to put into it, so it’s crucial that you are clear as to the desired outcome of your actions. Also, systems built for the sake of having systems results in a waste of time, money and resources. As the business owner, or member of the leadership team your time is a precious resource, but I urge you to set aside thinking time to get clear on what you want your business to look like in six months, one year, five years. Only then can you create a plan to get you from where you are now to where you want to be.
Stakeholder buy-in
For many people, change is uncomfortable; they resist it, often without even considering why that is. That means you need help driving your initiative forward, and having stakeholder buy-in, from the senior team in particular, is essential.
Strategic change can be hard to bring about. You need to dig deep and be the leader your business needs. Keeping your focus on the desired outcome is easier with the back-up of your stakeholders, and the knowledge of the greater rewards that lie on the other side of that change.
And of course, getting the specialist support you need.
The right team
You need a team that will support and challenge you in equal measure. When we say ‘team’ in this context, we’re mostly talking about the group of external experts who will help to facilitate the process of change. People who aren’t constrained by ‘that’s how we’ve always done it’ and ‘that’s just how it is round here’. People who will ask the right questions to drill down to what is most important to your business goals and what will have the biggest impact. People who aren’t afraid to get the bonnet up and have a look at what’s underneath, and who can also look beyond what’s directly in front of them, such as a specific system or process. Put simply, it’s easier to see the bigger picture when you’re standing on the outside.
If now is the right time for you and your business, start here
This process may be new to you, but we have gone through it countless times before with a wide range of businesses. Getting started is easy, just a straightforward conversation. We’d love to talk with you about your business and your aspirations. If we believe the tools and systems we develop can help you get to the next level we’ll share what that would look like for you, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Our first priority is to help you by asking the right questions. Why not get in touch and get started right now?
